Wicked Annabella
by AvaRosier
Summary: She raised an eyebrow at the man left next to her. "And what are you going to do, Derek? Threaten to huff and puff and blow the Piggly-Wiggly down?" He just stared at her if she was a puzzle that would solve itself. "There's something wrong with you," he told her. "No shit, Sherlock," She snarled at him as the lights flickered again. (Lydia/Stiles/Derek)


****An adaptation of the fic written for the travel_in_packs Halloween challenge over on LJ. Title comes from the song by the Kinks, and some inspiration was drawn from Ginger Snaps and Wicked (Gregory Maguire). I decided to age everyone up and set it in New Orleans to uproot you darling readers from what you know about the canon. FYI, the setting isn't entirely believable, so I'm asking you to suspend your disbelief for this one.

**Past is Prologue:**

Lydia Martin is thirteen months old when she says her first word. It wasn't her parents' faults, not really. Lord knew that Anthony and Janine Martin (nee Tyler) had made repeated entreaties to their daughter to say, in no particular order, 'Mama', 'Dada', or 'bye'. The latter being a cute idea they had imagined calling their parents about. ("Mom, you won't believe what the baby said! Yes, her first word! She said 'bye!' Isn't that adorable?" Squealing would ensue.)

But it was an early summer evening when they were sat on the sofa in front of the television, watching the news. As it often was, there had been some type of tragedy or another somewhere in the world. Tony and Janine were only half-heartedly paying attention, preferring to complain about their work days. They were still in love, then.

Lydia was not really paying attention to the television, either. She was more absorbed in her building blocks.

But some word, some fragment of a sentence must have captured her attention. Her pudgy hand froze mid-air with a block clutched inside. With wide green eyes, she stared at the brightly moving pictures, too young to really understand what they meant.

She takes advantage of a lull in dialogue and decisively declares, "Horrors."

In her infantile mouth, unaccustomed to making particular shapes in conjunction with her tongue and sparse teeth, it came out sounding more like 'orr-ors'.

Her parents froze and turned to stare at their child. Lydia simply nodded once and repeated, "horrors" for their benefit, to leave no question in their mind that she had just said her first word.

Turning her attention back to her building blocks, Lydia carefully placed the final block into its intended place. She giggled and, with a swipe of her hand, knocked the structure down, delighting in the mess it made as she swung her hands through the debris. Blocks skittered to and fro.

She didn't say that word again for a very long time, instead progressing through the standard 'Mama', 'Dada', then 'No' and 'More'.

So Tony and Janine Martin allowed themselves to ignore that episode, because really, how would you explain away a baby whose first word was 'horrors'? What would it _mean_ about her? And Lydia was the most perfect, well-behaved, clever little baby.

Whether or not they should have remembered was immaterial.

But what it means, dear reader, is that you ought to understand that at the outset, Lydia Martin was an unusual girl.

**Four Weeks Before Halloween:**

Lydia Martin was a performance.

She kept one hand casually propped on her hip, pursed her perfectly painted lips, and attempted to keep her eyes half-lidded and uncaring as Jackson walked past her towards the dilapidated frat house.

"Hello, Jackson. You look handsome." Her words came out more clipped and breathless than she had intended. This was not good, because now he knew she was still upset about being dumped. "Obviously," he sneered. "It's _Hugo Boss_."

Jackson Whittemore was a performance, too. Just not to the extent that Lydia Martin was. The humiliation swept through her, tightening her gut and reddening her cheeks. That was always the problem and the risk with Jackson and her. They shared a bond and understood one other on a certain level, but they knew exactly how to hurt one other. And Lydia had hidden enough parts of her away from everyone else to fear them being exposed.

Tonight, the skies were clear and she could smell the faint aroma of smoke in the air, and beneath that, the cloying stink of sugar refineries. The oppressive heat of August had passed, for which Lydia was grateful. The sweat was so unattractive and it practically welcomed dengue fever. She had always loved autumn the most, and autumn in New Orleans held such promise. Inhaling, she breathed in the constant stench of life rotting and death blooming. It had just turned October and the moon was a waning crescent, mostly obscured by shadow.

Lydia flipped her long ginger hair back over her shoulder and smoothed out her champagne wriggle dress. She could do this. Her eyeliner was smudge-proof and her red lipstick was combat-ready.

She ended up spending the next two hours pretending to drink from the same glass of a disgusting vodka-and-cranberry juice cocktail and making false pleasantries with several sorority girls she knew from Tulane. She lied every time they inquired about how she was doing since the break-up, smiling at their gestures of feminine empathy but all the while seething at the vicious pleasure that she knew was behind the façade. Twice, she caught a glimpse of Jackson. After the second time, when she saw him with his arm around Allison Argent, Lydia decided that a retreat was necessary in order to regroup and think up a new strategy.

She was halfway down the stairs when she ran into a lanky man that she had seen around campus, back when Allison was still dating that dork Scott McCall. She hadn't bothered to remember his name, then. He broke out in a wide grin when he recognized her. "Lydia! It's Stiles, Stiles Stilinski. You look beautiful, as usual."

She furrowed her eyebrow at him. "What the hell is a Stiles?" She asked no-one in particular. Shaking her head, she began to continue down the stairs past him. "I'm going to start mainlining vodka now. Don't think that just because you gave me a flattering remark, I'm going to get drunk and pull my dress up for you."

He held his hands out and shook his head. "Wouldn't even dream of it. You know, I happen to have heard from a little birdie that the frat brothers are hoarding the quality liquor in a cabinet inside the laundry room and, as the son of the Sheriff of Ouachita Parish, I naturally know how to pick locks." He held his elbow out towards her. "Well, that sounds like an excellent idea," Lydia declared. She took his proffered arm and allowed him to lead her further into the house.

One hour later, she was more than pleasantly buzzed and somehow she had found herself listening as Stiles told her tales. "It's the most tragic love story of them all, really." He murmured from his pillow in her lap as she combed her fingers through the dark hair that he'd grown out since she'd seen him last. "You've got Old Man Mississippi, madly in love with the young and swift Atchafalaya River. But then you have the Army Corps of Engineers doing their best to cockblock them with cement. But someday that'll crumble. And the two lovers will be together once again. They've both been around for so long, longer than any of us have memories. The rivers will outlast us all…" he trailed off, eyes closing from the potent effects of his own whiskey and Lydia's fingers on his scalp.

Another half-hour had passed and both were sitting next to one other on top of the washer and dryer units, talking about their post-graduate plans.

"Hmm, no." she demurred around another sip of expensive whiskey. "They don't give a Nobel prize for mathematics. The Fields Medal- that's the one I'll be winning." And she will. Lydia Martin has a very bright future. It's nice to admit to someone that she's utterly brilliant.

"I know you will." He sounded so certain, she thought, as she looked at him. And then there was something different about the way Stiles was smiling at her. Under the yellow lighting in the laundry room, his eyes glowed amber like the whiskey they were drinking. The last thought she had before his lips were pressing softly against hers was that he had such lovely, expressive eyes.

The kiss was nice. No, definitely more than nice. Her lips were tingling and when he paused, pulling away a fraction to give her the opportunity to change her mind, Lydia curled her hands around his biceps and pulled him closer, a different kind of desire making her belly clench in anticipation. She kissed Stiles harder, with more intensity, until they were both of them breathless.

There were two thoughts simultaneously floating through her mind. One, that she didn't have these kinds of butterflies with Jackson. Two, that she really, really wants to press her breasts up against Stiles' chest and let his hands tou-

Lydia pulled away from him with a gasp. Looking around the laundry room in a daze, she touched her lips, knowing her lipstick would be terribly smudged and her lips hopelessly swollen. Stiles was looking at her, worried. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"

"It's okay. _It's okay_. I just- I was supposed to..." She pointed in the direction of nothing, as if that's where Jackson was. Jackson! She should go find Jackson. At the very least, he should see her smeared lipstick and be jealous. That was the one thing that would make this train wreck of a night better.

"It's okay, really." She can't bear to look at Stiles. "I should be going." She opened the door to the laundry room and the sounds of the party rushed into the small space. Before leaving, she turned her head in his direction. "Thank you, though, for everything."

Lydia tried not to feel guilty as she moved through the house looking for her ex-boyfriend. Although, she wasn't quite sure what she wanted to not feel guilty about- kissing a man who wasn't Jackson when she was trying to get back together with him, or for kissing Stiles and leaving him in the laundry room. She gave an annoyed little huff when she realized that Jackson probably wasn't in the house. It stood right down the street from the St. Patrick cemetery and groups of people were known to go off to drink and have awful, unprotected sex there. So, off she went in her lovely peep-toe heels with the black bow on the ankle, into the wood of cold stone tombs.

She was just taking a walk, she told herself. Jackson would come across her, he'd try to land another verbal jab, but this time she would be aloof. She would pretend Jackson was behaving like a silly child. He'd see that she was moving on, that he might lose her for good.

By this point in her life, Lydia has learned how to be a master manipulator.

But then she realized that she could no longer hear the sounds of the party. The faint rush of water ahead of her was probably a stream. The leaves crunched underneath her feet as she moved forward just enough to be able to see the moon through the canopy of half-dead tropical plants. A crumbled stone angel reached out for it from atop an equally aged tomb. There was a whisper of movement through the leaves that alerted her to the fact that she was no longer alone.

Lydia doesn't bother to call out "who's there?" because that's how the stunning young ingénues always die in those low-budget horror films on the Syfy channel. Also, she carries mace on her keychain.

But it wasn't Jackson.

This was how the stories went- the ones with the wolves and the girls all alone in the woods. But Lydia didn't believe that the wolves existed, because they were all just allegories to her. It was always bad for the girl in those stories. But she had always rolled her eyes at the obviously patriarchal attempt to police female sexuality in those tales. Don't go into the woods, little girls, they would say, because there are wolves in the night. Wolves looking for innocent, young virgins like you to devour.

There was a man. There was a creature. Both had big, sharp teeth.

Lydia did scream. She did run.

She went flying onto the grass in a riot of blood and satin. There was a man crawling over her, but in the flashes of not-shadow, she saw enough to realize that maybe he wasn't a man.

Her last thought was the hope that there wasn't any blood on her brand new pumps.

Those knock-off Louboutins had cost a pretty penny.

**Three Weeks Before Halloween**

Lydia spun around in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom, enjoying the feel of her lavender and violet skirt billowing out around her thighs. She hummed happily as she admired the shape of her legs all the way down to the brand new pair of shoes that encased her feet. They were black pumps with silver and black sparkles and black satin ties. Her skin appeared practically luminous against the purple and black. It had been a week since she was released from the hospital, and her mother's response to anything Lydia suffered in the world was to take her shopping. So, Janine had driven down from Baton Rouge to go around to the stores and put a dent in her credit card before tearfully leaving her only child in a city with a high murder rate.

She was grateful to be alone again. Not because her mother hovered (she did), but because apparently her mother had nothing on Lydia's own so-called friends. Ever since she had woken up, they had been everywhere she was- asking her how she was feeling and if she had seen what had attacked her. But refusing to elaborate on why they were so concerned about those things.

"It looked like a big, bad wolf!" she had snarled back one day in frustration. But Allison's face had paled and her eyes had shuttered. "Don't be silly, Lydia. Wolves wouldn't be this close to the city." Lydia had rolled her eyes and laughed, the noise sounding grating even to her own ears. Why, oh why did she feel like she had been gaslighted in that conversation?

But Lydia was clever, and Lydia was making a note of the things people said and did not say; the way they looked and who they looked to instead of _at_ her.

She click-clacked her way into the kitchen, having decided that she was in the mood for some shrimp étouffée _right this very moment_. She reached up onto her tiptoes and rifled through the pantry for the ingredients. But, unfamiliar with her new shoes, Lydia overestimated her ability to balance on her toes in them and began to lurch unsteadily. A pair of hands encircled her waist, setting her back to rights. Knowing that she lived alone, Lydia naturally concluded that her apartment must have been broken into by a rapist or an axe-murderer and she was possibly going to die. Clutching her sack of flour and the thyme and paprika to her chest, she turned around.

It was that strange man she had seen lurking around campus from time to time, the one who had caused a small scandal by being arrested on suspicion of his sister's murder. Derek Hale. She'd also seen Stiles and Scott around him occasionally, exchanging furtive looks and hushed conversations. He was tall, dark-haired, and apparently struggled with a razor. The way he brooded, he was probably one of those Lit majors.

Those were the sort, weren't they?

"You're not going to get in the way of my dinner." She informed him, pursing her lips. That would make it clear that he couldn't push her around. His lower half was pressed against her, and his hands were still a warm weight on her hips. Underneath the dress and the gauze, her wound burned.

"You're not screaming or trying to kick me." He stated, flummoxed. Really, his eyebrows were raised so high they might as well have disappeared into his hair.

"Would there be a point in it?" she shot back. "Shoo," she wriggled in his hold, managing to hold all her things and bat him away. She set the flour and spices on the counter, went to the refrigerator, and pulled out some celery, onion, and green bell pepper.

"I, ah, wanted to see if you were okay." His voice rumbled behind her.

"Oh, is that what this vague threat of sexual violence is all about?" She asked him with a raised eyebrow over her shoulder as she turned the burner on underneath the cauldron.

"I need to see your wound."

"No." A big dollop of butter joined the oil in the pot, melting and beginning to sizzle softly. At Derek's growl of frustration, she rolled her eyes and pulled out the twelve-inch kitchen knife so that she could begin to dice the vegetables and add them to the pot.

"I'm wearing a dress. Do you think my mama raised me to pull my dress over my head for an excuse that flimsy?"

Derek stepped closer, hands flexing menacingly. The doorbell rang.

Lydia sighed in irritation and headed towards the door with the knife still in hand. "At this rate, I'm going to have to put in the Andouille sausage just to have enough for everyone." She hated it when people didn't have the courtesy to call ahead.

As soon as she swung the door open, Stiles came sprawling inside, evidently having been leaning against the door. "Lydia! I thought I would…" He trailed off when he caught sight of the man walking into the living room and his entire body tensed up. "Derek. You're here already." Stiles scrambled to his feet, moving in front of Lydia protectively.

This wasn't the first Lydia had seen of Stiles Stilinski since the attack. He'd been the one to find her, to carry her back to the house, and he had ridden with her in the ambulance. One of the nurses had told her later, after she had woken up, that he'd been sitting outside her room for the two days she had been unconscious. Later on, when he had come into her room and held her hand, she had pretended to still be sleeping.

"I'm quick." Derek mocked, baring his teeth at Stiles.

"'_Already_' implies that this matter was discussed at some point," Lydia huffed with annoyance as she elbowed her way around Stiles and stared up at both men, waving the knife around casually. Both men jumped backwards to avoid being cut open. Good, because Lydia was so not going to clean up any of the viscera that would have ended up on her Aunt Natalie's rug. "Now, you have about twenty minutes to explain why you are intruding in on my nice evening alone. I had plans to eat, drink some wine, and then make good use of my vibrator."

Derek's eyebrows were doing the thing again and Stiles made a strangled sound next to her, so she swung the knife back in his direction. "And if the two of you don't explain this to my satisfaction, I just might not let you have dinner, is that understood?" Stiles nodded rapidly, arms flailing a bit. Pointing the knife at Derek with a challenge in her raised eyebrow, Lydia smiled as sweet as poison up at him. "Et tu, _Edward_?"

"I don't sparkle." He deadpanned.

But after a moment he nodded, and staring at his face, Lydia took note that his eyes weren't actually steely blue, but a pale green. "Excellent. You boys start getting your stories straight; I must get back to my little cauldron. It's time for the garlic." With a jaunty wave of the knife, Lydia slinked back towards the kitchen, an extra sway in her hips as she went.

Behind her, she heard a smack and then a hiss from Stiles as Derek muttered, "_Stop staring at her, Stiles_. She might be dangerous."

"_Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble_," Lydia sang to herself as she sprinkled in some flour and after that, a heaping tablespoon of Bay seasoning and paprika, a pinch of chili powder, thyme, and basil. Giving her wooden spoon a stir, she nodded decisively and dumped the platter of shrimp and sausage in, watching as Stiles got up in Derek's face aggressively. Lydia observed the two men with some concern, not wanting to end up with blood on the nice hardwood floors. She'd never get her deposit back, and there was absolutely no way she was ruining her knees scrubbing the stain out.

Reaching around blindly behind her, her fingers came into contact with the smooth glass neck of an opened wine bottle. Gripping it, she brought the green bottle about and poured a small amount of red wine into the cauldron. The alcohol sizzled and she poured a generous amount into a wineglass for herself.

Lydia took a sip and watched the action going on in front of her. From the snippets of conversation she could hear, she figured out that Stiles was scolding Derek for having snuck into Lydia's apartment with nefarious intentions, that she wasn't one of…_something_, evidently, and that just because he'd had an inappropriate relationship with Kate Argent didn't mean he could bad-touch people. She raised an eyebrow at the revelation that Derek had apparently had an underage relationship with Allison's aunt.

It'd been splashed all over the papers a few years ago that she'd been the one who set the Hale house on fire, killing most of Derek's family. Filing that away for later, Lydia decided to concentrate on the discovery that her friends (and Derek) were watching her because they expected_something_ to happen to her. And she needed to figure out what that 'something' was, she concluded as she added the last group of liquids to the pot and got out some leftover rice to heat up in the microwave.

There was a small thud behind her, and she sighed before turning around, hands full with bowls.

_Hmm,_ she mused, observing the way Derek had Stiles pushed up against the wall and was most definitely in inappropriate touching territory and Stiles wasn't exactly protesting having Derek's muscular thigh practically pressed up against his crotch. She caught Derek's glare intermittently drifting down to Stiles' lips and the fist wrapped around the younger man's shirt seemed to relax and almost grope against the pectoral muscle underneath as he kept Stiles pressed up against the wall.

That was hot.

"As much as this is turning me on right now, I'd much appreciate it if you boys would redirect your unresolved sexual tension towards my fabulous étouffée which is almost finished cooking. You can rub up against each other later." She said shrewdly. The two men didn't spring apart guiltily, but their heads swung around towards her with twin expressions of puzzlement. Derek made a show of releasing Stiles' shirt and stepping away.

She shoved the bowls into Derek's abdomen, forcing him to grab onto them. "You set the table. Nicely! These are quality craftsmanship." He rolled his eyes at her but did as she bade him. _Well, at least he's housebroken_, Lydia thought to herself.

Lydia lugged the pot over to the table and, after the men had spooned some rice into their bowls, ladled some of the stew into Stiles'. Derek was sitting cattycorner to the other man at the table, and Lydia stared at him hard as she set the cauldron down with a dull _thunk_. When he realized he wasn't going to get any food out of Lydia until he gave her some information, Derek scowled at her petulantly.

Lydia only smiled insincerely and began to run her fingers through Stiles' soft hair as his eyes flickered from the other man to her, waiting to see what happened next. "Go ahead and eat, Stiles. There's no need for you to wait on Derek."

He glanced up at her with a mischievous pout. She could see he was barely holding back a grin. "You're not going to interrogate me?" He wheedled hopefully. "But I have information, I'm very informed! If you wanted to torture me, I wouldn't even complain much."

Ignoring the snort from Derek, she hummed down at him, stroking his cheek. "Oh, sweetie, I'm using my food to put a spell on you. My étouffée will make you more talkative. Tabasco?" she asked, holding up the bottle of red liquid.

"Don't mind if I do." He pulled the bottle out of her hand. "Divide and conquer as a strategy, I approve. I always knew you were evil, Lydia. But a good kind of evil," He rushed to add, as he scooped some étouffée and rice onto his spoon. Lydia let her gaze flicker up to Derek's face as Stiles moaned around the bite in his mouth. When he licked his spoon with a little sigh, she saw those green eyes become more hooded and his nostrils flare.

Lydia waited for him to catch her watching before she turned her attention back to Stiles. "Stiles, do you mind terribly if I just share with you? It'd be one fewer bowl to clean tonight."

"Sure," he began. But before he could lift the spoon to her mouth, she was climbing sideways onto his lap, wriggling against a half-erection to get comfortable. Ignoring his moaned, "oh, god", she took the utensil out of his slackening hold, placing the hand around her waist instead. After two bites, she hummed around the spoon. Putting it down for Stiles, she curled her arms around his neck and turned her attention back to Derek.

"Now, what does a Lit major think he can tell me about my animal bite, and why should I care?" Derek was staring at the pot of delicious smelling food with naked desire. Her étouffée was the best, Lydia knew. She had been awarded the coveted blue ribbon at the 2008 and 2009 Southern Pride festival for that recipe. "I'm going to eat it all in a minute if you don't start talking." She teased in a sing-song voice.

Finally, he responded. "My family knew a lot about local wild animals. If I could just look at the bite, I could figure out what it was and help the local conservationists track it down. It may be a danger to people." He said the last so earnestly and then slowly broke out in a wide, flirtatious smile.

_My, what big teeth you have_.

Lydia could detect a rehearsed lie when she heard one. But oddly enough, when Derek Hale was doing it, she didn't particularly mind. It was cute that he thought it would work on her, though. "I fail to see how this was so imperative that you couldn't be bothered to ring the doorbell and instead skipped straight to breaking in and pressing your," she paused and licked her lips suggestively, eyes raking over him, "oh, so ripped body right up against mine, hoping I'd be _so frightened_, I'd just _take off my dress_ right then and there! That's not being concerned about an animal bite, Derek. That's the idiotic premise to a pornographic film."

"You…_what_?" Stiles burst out, nearly unseating her from her perch, and the two men started sniping at one other again. Lydia decided enough was enough. She heaved the cast iron pot and set it down closer to Derek. Stiles stopped lambasting Derek for being such a creep long enough to whine, "What happened to not letting him eat until he gave you answers? All those _Supernanny_ shows are very clear on this: you have to follow through with the punishment, or else they'll walk all over you."

"I am not a child," Derek muttered in between shovelling food in his mouth.

"I changed my mind," she chirped at Stiles. "It's clear that I won't get a straight answer out of you two. That's okay. I have other methods." She beamed at them and, ignoring the worry in their expressions, sprung out of Stiles' lap. "Eat up, it's not like I poisoned it this time." She _click-clacked_ away from the dining table and headed back into the kitchen for her glass of wine. Topping it off, Lydia took it with her back to the table.

Whatever the real reason was for Derek Hale needing to see her wound, it probably had something to do with the way her friends were stalking her every movement, and it must be important. If she was going to take her clothes off, and not for sex, she was going to need that glass of wine.

She managed to drink half the glass in the seven-and-a-half minutes it took for Derek and Stiles to proclaim they were full. Well, the pot was empty, anyhow. Lydia didn't look at the two men as she stood up and stacked the dirty bowls in the pot. The couch was ten feet away from the dining table and she simply turned away, unzipped the dress, and let it pool on the ground as she walked towards the couch. "Well, I don't have all day!" She snapped as she lay down on the couch, her left side exposed to their gaze.

She heard the sound of two sets of chair legs scraping against the floor and then Derek was sitting on the coffee table by her side. She turned her head away, staring at the pattern on her grandmother's god-awful ugly 1970s quilt (which she actually adores). Stiles must have sat down next to Derek because she feels his comforting touch on her calf. Her bra and panty set was black, like her heels. She wondered if it looked macabre against the bright red bite wound that they can both see, now that Derek was peeling the bandage away from her skin. She tried not to tremble, still resolutely refusing to look over at them. But when a gentle, calloused finger brusheed against the scarring tissue itself, she jerked and slammed her eyes shut, breathing heavily.

A moment later, she felt a hand slide into hers with a firm grip. Stiles' hands are on her still-shaky legs, so she knew it must be Derek's hand holding hers. There's a fluttering in her belly and Lydia realizes she's in trouble. Two men have given her butterflies recently, and she's barely thought about Jackson.

"That's all I needed to see," Derek murmured, pulling the quilt down over her body. "Thank you, Lydia." She turned her head then, meeting first his eyes, and then Stiles'. They're both sincere.

Wrapped up in the quilt, she feels secure enough to drift off into dreamland, barely aware of the low murmur of conversation around her and the clink of dishes, splashing around in the sink.

After they cleaned up the mess from dinner, Derek and Stiles must have let themselves out. The next day, when Lydia awakened, she noted that the duplicate key was missing from its bowl on top of her television. She wants to blame Derek, but she's pretty sure that one was all Stiles.

That man could be such a Slytherin. (She approves.)

It's like once she was aware that there was something else going on, something that the people around her were going to great lengths to hide (even Jackson seemed in on it, she had seen him talking to Scott and Stiles when he had absolutely no reason to acknowledge their existence), Lydia began to realize there was something going on inside of her.

She was beginning to change.

First, there were the nightmares. Half-hazy recollections of the attack which morphed into a sinister and half-burnt man- _Peter_- haunting her dreams, turning them into scenes of terror. Creatures with red eyes sprang at her from through her bedroom window. She is dragged off to some awful fate and no matter how she tried to grab at anything to hold onto, they turn out to be ephemeral. _All you have to do to make this stop,_ he tells her, _is to do everything I tell you._

_Anything, _she sobs in her dreams. _Anything, please!_

In the waking world, where she remembers every ounce of horror and every spasm of fear, Lydia rolls her eyes.

_As if._

**Two Weeks Before Halloween**

When Lydia came to, her back was up against the roughly hewn stone of a tomb hidden amongst some Spanish moss. The new moon was high above her head, visible through some bare branches. It took her a while to realize that she wasn't supposed to be here, and certainly not naked. Ignoring the gris-gris left against the steps near her, she got to her feet, trying not to wince at the pain. _There were 5,834 bodies here_. For a moment, Lydia puzzled why she would have that thought. But then it passed. All those dead, spending an eternity above ground because the swampland beneath would pull them away, and Lord only knew where they would re-emerge aboveground. A nasty skeletal surprise in someone's backyard, most likely. It was a peculiar sort of immortality, to steadfastly refuse to become one with the earth again.

_Ashes to ashes, dust to dust_.

She stumbled around aimlessly, before finally stopping to remember that she knew how to re-orient herself by looking at the stars. It was late, she guessed, by the lack of people and cars out on the street. She honestly wouldn't give a fuck if anyone saw her right now.

Ever since she had woken up in the hospital, she'd found she had little patience for pretending to be anything other than who she was.

It had to be an hour before dawn, she determined, because in the horizon, the sky was lightening to an intense violet that looked like it had been colored in with a crayon. Exiting the cemetery, she squinted at the sign and then immediately headed east in the general direction of her home.

She passed by wrought iron fences, the gothic spires seeming more menacing in the shadows cast by the moon. Some of the houses she passed by were decked out for Halloween already. Glowing-light spiders perched on gauzy netting; the giant oak trees, with stretched-out cotton threaded throughout the strands of branches, seemed to sigh in the breeze. Here, she could smell the heady scent of jasmine and olive. She passed by the Bayou St. John, the waterway on its egress to Lake Pontchartrain, and knew she was almost home.

She was exhausted, hungry, and she didn't know what she had been doing in the cemetery or for how long. She was too tired to be terrified or brave. What was the point, really? Freaking out wouldn't tell her what she needed to know. Somewhere in the distance, there was a burst of laughter and she froze in her tracks. But when she focused on the sound, she realized it was accompanied by music. (The faint strains of "The Witch-Queen of New Orleans" reached her ears, and she had to raise an eyebrow. How so very fitting.) There was a street sign at the corner and she breathed a sigh of relief that she was at last in her neighborhood.

She padded barefoot over the broken concrete sidewalks, too cold to shiver, and stepped around the shattered remnants of a jack o' lantern, its macabre face still intact and laughing up at her. She turned onto her street and suddenly, there were people.

It was Derek who sees her first- absorbed in the worried arguments going back and forth between Stiles and Allison and Jackson. Scott is glaring at Derek, and there are three other people wearing matching leather jackets like this was an episode of _Sons of Anarchy_. A blonde woman, a calm and bored-looking black man, and a lanky man with blonde curls that she recognizes as having hit on her last year. Isaac, that was his name. And as if prompted, she remembers that the other man's name was Vernon Boyd (her roommate last year, Sharlene, had waxed poetic about him. Apparently he was something of an Architecture whiz.)

She didn't think she made any noise, but Derek's head whipped up and he spun around to face her.

Everyone else stops arguing when they follow his line of sight and see her standing there.

"Lydia!" Stiles cries. "You're alive! And naked!"

"Really? I hadn't noticed." She shrugged. Making no move to cover her nakedness, she began to wander closer to the group. It's hard to maintain her focus on the here and now. She suspected she was in some sort of shock. "So, how long have I been gone to warrant such loving concern?"

Stiles, Allison, and Jackson began to talk over each other, asking her questions instead of telling her what she wants to know. Releasing an ever-suffering sigh, she turned to Derek who, thankfully, had his eyes trained on her face.

"Two days. You've been gone for about two days." He told her, expression carefully blank. The blonde woman in the biker jacket and too much eyeliner smirked at her. "You have dead bugs in your hair."

Lydia pursed her lips. "Thank you for telling me."

From next to her, Boyd groaned. "Erica!"

"Lydia, we should get you to a hospital." Allison cut in, pleading, and Lydia could see that her best friend had been worried for her. The other woman's dark hair was piled up in a messy bun and her eyes were rimmed with red. Behind her, Jackson looked relieved to see her, but Lydia did not feel relieved to see Jackson.

"Does my disappearance have something to do with the animal attack? Because these don't feel like symptoms of rabies."

Allison hedged, not quite looking her in the eye when she shook her head. "It's probably shock, or a side-effect of the pain medication. The hospital should be able to tell us."

"The hospital won't tell us anything." Lydia stated, and began to tick things off with her fingers. "One: I saw a man. Two: I also saw a wolf. Three: your family, hilariously named 'Argent', spends a lot of time in the woods and the cemeteries with hunting equipment and you've joined them prowling about with a bow. Four: your Aunt went crazy and killed most of Derek's family. Five: Derek gave me a bullshit excuse about his family knowing a lot about wild animals, which I presume, includes wolves. Six: you freaked out when I said I had been attacked by the Big Bad Wolf. Seven: Stiles and you all are inordinately concerned with watching me to make sure I don't become one of…_something_." She finished with a wave of her hand.

"Now, you know what I know. There is a conclusion there, as impossible as it seems, but it's virtually the only explanation left. But I'm tired, and I'm hungry, and I'm _fucking freezing_, and I'm going to go to bed so that in the afternoon I can figure out a way to beg my professors to let me hand in two papers a day late." She headed towards her front door.

"It's not that simple, Lydia," Allison began from behind her. "We couldn't just tell you if it meant putting you in unnecessary danger," Stiles burst out at the same time. Scott and Jackson were offering their own excuses while Derek just gave her one of his nods. Lydia took that to mean he would tell her what she needed to know.

Just not right this moment.

"_Shhhh_," she hissed at them, the sound sibilant and sharp in the fading night. "We wouldn't want Lydia to overhear something she shouldn't. Spoilers!" And with that, she stepped around them, tugging absently at the rat's nest that was her hair. Making her way to her front door, she was pleased to discover that she must have left it unlocked when she went hiking in the woods.

"I like her!" Erica exclaimed behind her. Well, there was a comforting thought.

No one follows her inside, and she is left to spend an hour in the shower cleaning off every last iota of dirt and god only knows what else from her body. She suspects that Derek had forced everyone else to leave her alone. She was no fool, they'd be checking up on her later. But tonight, she would get a reprieve.

First were the nightmares, which continued every night. Second, were the rivers of blood.

"I want to die," she moaned, rocking back and forth atop the toilet. "No," she amends, arms hugging her midsection, "I'm going to get my biggest, sharpest knife, and carve my uterus out with it. Yes, that's what I'll do." She cooed to herself as she tried to endure the cramps racking her lower abdomen. A cursory look into her bathroom cabinet revealed that she had but one pantyliner left to contain the bright red blood practically gushing out of her body. Growling, she realized that she was going to have to run to the nearest Piggly Wiggly.

"_Fuck_."

The fluorescent lights were harsh to her eyes as she stalked through the aisles looking for the feminine products. She was in such a right state, she'd left her home in old sweats and no makeup. Of course, the tampons were nowhere to be seen, because the management was too stupid to put things in their most ergonomical placement. Training a glare towards the cashier checkout aisles, she bore down upon the skinny, pimply teenager with the bland brond hair and the dull blue eyes.

"Lydia! Fancy seeing you here tonight!"

She stopped in her tracks and turned her attention to Stiles, Derek, and Isaac, who were standing near a Halloween candy display, trying to look innocent. Like they hadn't followed her here. Stiles gave her a dorky grin and wave. Isaac just nodded and the side of his mouth turned up in something more a grimace than a smile, while Derek turned his head slowly to stare incredulously at Stiles. Glowering at them with bleary eyes, Lydia took in a deep breath, and then continued on with her original mission.

"_Where…are…the…tampons_?" She ground out.

The cashier, whose nametag identified him as "J.B." smirked at her and held out his hands in a mock-pacifying manner. "Whoa, there, darlin'. A lil' PMS ain't nothin' to be takin' my head off for." He snickered to himself. The lights flickered above them.

Lydia curled her lip up at him in contempt. There was a beat where nothing happened before she reached out lightning quick and grasped the collar of his uniform shirt and yanked it towards her. She had the satisfaction of him yelping in shock. "Listen here, you smelly peasant. I am bleeding copiously from my vagina and my uterus is cramping much more heavily than normal. It's been like this for _hours_, J.B. Hours! You can understand how that would make even the most pleasant of girls a little bit murderous. I am not a pleasant girl, J.B., and so help me God, if you don't tell me right now, I will bleed all over these disgusting floors and make you clean it up."

"B-back in aisle thir-thirteen!" He managed to stutter, frantically trying to pull himself away from her.

And then Stiles was there uncurling her fist from J.B.'s shirt. "Okay, okay! Lydia! Please let go…" Once she had released the cashier, Stiles was laughing nervously and trying to straighten the kid's uniform for him. "Alright. Okay, J.B., here's what we're going to do. You're going to go help Isaac here pick out whatever Lydia wants. What do you want, Lydia?"

"Kotex. The super-absorbent kind." She smirked at J.B. "Heavy flows, you know. They make a mess on the sheets at night." It made her happy to watch the reedy little boy's nose wrinkle with disgust. _Good_.

"Why can't you guys get it for-" He began to whine, but then Isaac was there, yanking him around the conveyor belt and manhandling him towards Aisle Thirteen. "Because we can't read. Come on."

Stiles grinned at her, obviously proud of the way he had handled that situation. Lydia glared at him, wishing all this were over with so she could bend over into herself and ease the cramps. Or stab herself with a dull knife. "I'll ah- go get you some drugs and something chocolate." He clicked his tongue at her and took off.

She raised an eyebrow at the man left next to her. "And what are _you_ going to do, Derek? Threaten to huff and puff and blow the Piggly-Wiggly down?"

He just stared at her if she was a puzzle that would solve itself. "There's something wrong with you." He told her.

"No shit, Sherlock." She snarled at him as the lights flickered again.

**Less than a Week before Halloween**

First came the nightmares.

_This is my grave, _Peter tells her one night, standing in an unrecognizable part of a cemetery. But he knew the city well, and thus she knows exactly where he is. He shows her the people he's killed, _if you don't bring me back I will never stop making you watch._ She sees Laura, his own niece, vivisected and her body buried near a honeysuckle bush. Even having never stood near the tomb, she can smell the sweetness, the citrus, and the iron tang of blood. _Now, Lydia, listen as I tell you the magic. I will tell you what they can't. What they won't._

Then came the blood and the rage. Stiles had kept her pacified with chocolate, drugs, and a heating pad. Although she found that she could put the latter aside and settle for sitting on her couch tucked in with him between two..._men?_...who generated more than enough body heat to make her feel warm and cozy. They hadn't even complained when she made them watch _The Notebook_ with her. Twice.

But now, the hunger came.

Lydia had hopped on a network of streetcars that took her over to the French Quarter. She sat at a table in Café du Monde and tucked into a plate full of beignets, licking off the powdered sugar from her fingers and slurping down some chicory coffee. "I need to talk to the Argents," she decided. After another plate of beignets, though.

Lydia then headed out to the Argent home in the Lower Garden District at mid-morning and knocked on their front door. She could really smell the river from here, musky and muddy. There was a cardboard-cutout witch taped to one of the front windows, a hag in purple and black. _Happy Halloween!_ It said in green glitter. The door creaked open behind her and she turned, training one of her best Smiles-For-Parents at Victoria Argent, who raised an eyebrow.

"Mrs. Argent. I need to know everything there is to know about werewolves. I need to kill one, you see."

Victoria was all harsh lines and vicious strength, and when she smiled down at Lydia, her teeth were very sharp-looking. "Why don't you come inside, Lydia? I made cookies."

After Lydia left the Argents' house with two ancient books tucked into her bag, she decided that she was really hungry. She texted Derek and Stiles, telling them she was ready to talk and they both were expected at her apartment at seven o'clock sharp. As she walked around the corner, she saw Allison's car pulling into the driveway. Smacking her glossy pink lips, Lydia grinned. Mr. and Mrs. Argent had been pleasantly surprised to learn that Lydia had taught herself Archaic Latin.

Information had been more forthcoming after that.

But that was only half the story, and a very biased one at that. She once had a guidance counsellor at Tulane, a Ms. Morell, who had hinted at knowledge of Voudun lore. It beat typing 'magic spells' into Google. Lydia visited her next, after stopping for some battered and fried fish that she doused in Louisiana hot sauce.

It was dark by the time she arrived back at her apartment, and the waxing crescent was nearly past. It wouldn't be long before the full moon. Lydia saw a blue jeep that must have been Stiles' parked at the curb and behind it, a gorgeous black Camaro that could only be Derek's. She assumes the two men have used her duplicate key to get into her apartment and heads right inside, carrying a massive takeaway bag.

"Honeys, I'm home!" She sang out as she took in the way Derek was reclining in one of the living room chairs, looking for all the world relaxed, but she saw the signs of him being coiled to spring. Stiles was stretched out on the couch with one leg on the floor, bouncing in boredom. He jumped to his feet when he saw Lydia and the bag of food. "You are my Queen, Lydia. I will forever worship at your feet," he moaned as he trailed behind her.

She could practically hear Derek rolling his eyes as he followed them over to the dining table. Lydia pulled out several Styrofoam containers. One, she handed to Derek. One, she handed to Stiles. That left two for her. There were several smaller boxes. Again, she handed one to Derek and one to Stiles, but kept two for herself.

The two men just sat there slack-jawed as she opened up her four boxes and began to methodically dig into a sausage jambalaya, then a bourbon steak just this side of dead, accompanied by some fried okra and steamed vegetables, and finally two slices of pie. She looked up at them and, realizing they were eating slowly, watching her rather than their own food. "What?" she snapped.

"Are- are you going to eat all that?" Stiles tried to ask diplomatically.

"Yes."

"Why?" Derek drawled.

"Because I'm really hungry." She told him as if it were the most obvious answer. "Why, do you have a problem with that?" Both men were quick to bark out "No! No, no problem" and she went back to her food. She waited just long enough to heighten the drama.

"I visited the Argents today and asked them to tell me about werewolves, which I now know for certain are real."

Silverware clattered on the table. "Are you stupid?" Derek growled at her, the change beginning to come over him. His nails lengthened into claws and she saw a hint of fang.

"Down, puppy." Lydia scolded, sawing her knife into the steak. "They have information, and now, so do I. Oh, god, this steak is amazing." She moaned around a bite of meat.

"They're dangerous, Lydia. Hunters don't always just go after werewolves that attack humans. Sometimes…"

She cut him off. "Sometimes they're the monsters. Well, _of course_. It's the human parts of ourselves that do awful things. Wolves or guns or the formula for nuclear fission, they're just weapons that give you extra power to do with what you will." Derek seemed at a loss of words.

"That's an enlightened opinion to have." Stiles said quietly from next to her.

She looked over at him, concerned that he was staring blankly at his food. "Is that a bad thing?"

"No." Both men echoed one other.

Lydia was enjoying her second slice of pie- cherry- while Stiles and Derek filled her in on their version of the stories she had heard today.

"Your Uncle Peter is the man who attacked me, right?" she asked, licking her fork and enjoying the burst of tartness on her tongue. At Stiles' soft "yeah", she decides to lay a few more cards on the table. "He's haunting my dreams. He's been telling me things. I think he wants me to help resurrect him."

She knows what Derek wants to ask, but instead he bit out a dismayed "what the hell are you?"

Stiles was smart enough to sense when a situation was going downhill fast, and he tugged at Derek's leather jacket. "Come on, sourwolf. No good wearing out our welcome." Derek finally followed the younger man. But as they began to leave, Derek let Stiles go on ahead before he turned around.

"I have my eyes on you," he told her, his voice low and dangerous.

She just cackled at him. "That's alright; I'm a bit of an exhibitionist. But really, I'd rather have your mouth on me. No, wait; I'd rather have _Stiles'_mouth on me. I bet he's great with his mouth when you put it to better use. Or maybe I'll watch him put his mouth on you while I ride your face." That gets a reaction from him and Lydia crowed in victory. "Ah, there we are! But I'll warn you, I like to bite."

Before the door slammed shut behind her, she heard him growl. "So do I."

"Promises, promises."

**Halloween**

Nobody partied quite like New Orleans on Halloween. Surrounded by the macabre, everyone was gluttonous for food and drink and music. Anything to chase away the restlessness- the black snake of evil rising up inside them. The mysteries of the night could go on forever and ever, and on a night like this, there was little difference between life and death.

Tonight, Lydia had a hunger of a different kind.

It was after nine o'clock, and Lydia wanted nothing more than to get fucked silly before midnight. She would be a tad busy after that. She was just now showing up at the Sigma Epsilon haunted house, decked out in a flowing black dress that followed the line of her body and a simple pointy black hat. She wore her sparkly black heels, a pendant necklace with a heavy white stone, and she was carrying a very old broomstick with her. She had been up late the past few nights reading through the books the Argents and Ms. Morell had lent her, paying close attention to every mention that had to do with werewolf healing and resurrection.

Tonight, she was going to get Peter Hale out of her dreams and change Derek's life forever.

The moon was almost full. Her skin felt strange, like something was moving underneath, unfurling. She was horny, too. Unbelievably horny- she had woken up this morning with soaked panties and even two rounds with her vibrator barely assuaged the ache. All day, she had been touching herself: caressing her collarbone, brushing her fingers against her nipples, rubbing her thighs together, and lightly running her fingers across her lips.

She was all alone in the narrow hallway of the top floor when the hairs on the back of her neck began to prickle. She could hear other party-goers shrieking with fear and delight as they navigated the gauntlets below. There was someone moving up behind her. She froze, paralyzed with a mix of fear and anticipation. There was warm breath on her neck, and she turned her head just a fraction- enough to make out a man in a skull mask and red hoodie looming over her shoulder. "_Oooooo_," he hooted softly, the vibration from his voice tickling her inner ear and making her shiver. Lydia's eyes drifted shut and she let the man's arm encircle her waist and when his fingers splayed against her lower abdomen, she felt a heaviness grow throughout her body.

"Stiles," she sighed. He pushed against her back, propelling her forward until there was a partially hidden door. He opened it for her and followed her through into his room. Lydia barely gave him time to close the door before she was dragging him over to the bed tucked into the corner of the room besides a window. She shoved him backwards onto the mattress and crawled over him. Her hat had been batted aside the second she had been alone with him, his mask joined it on the floor soon after.

Lydia held his head prisoner between her palms as she captured those soft lips with hers. She set out to devour Stiles, barely giving him an opportunity to breathe through his mouth. She could feel his chest rising and falling desperately while she nibbled on his bottom lip. Finally, he wrenched his head backwards, clutching her shoulders.

"Whoa, whoa! Not that I'm complaining, exactly, but are you sure this is what you want?" Stiles looked vulnerable underneath her all of the sudden, and Lydia just knew that was the same expression he must've had when she left him in that laundry room.

"Yes, you are what we want," she nodded to reassure him. And she was sincere about it this time. "I know what a Stiles is now." She bent down and covered his lips with hers once again before he could yelp, "wait, _'we'_?" It was like an inferno was flaring up inside her and she encouraged his hands to slide down lower, lower until they were cupping her bottom and she can rock the ball of need between her legs against his growing erection.

Lydia kept her mouth on his to swallow the delicious moans. Pulling back a little, she gazed at the dazed look on his face. "What a lovely mouth you have. All the better to eat me with."

He looked down at the red hoodie he was wearing and snickered. "I think I'm supposed to be Little Red Riding Hood in that allegory."

"I was the girl all alone in the woods with the Big, Bad Wolf who ate me up. But do you know what Stiles?" She asked rhetorically, wriggling on his lap as she tugged the black dress over her head, taking special note of the way his mouth slackened when he realized she wasn't wearing underwear. "Wolves and girls both have sharp teeth."

When Derek shoves the door open not even ten minutes later, Lydia was sprawled on top of Stiles as she rocked herself backwards into his face. From the enthusiastic and wet noises behind her, he was enjoying his feast. Lydia had tried to get away when the pleasure sharpened to a point that it was nearly painful, but his arms had wrapped around her waist and kept her locked in place.

Lydia stared up at the Alpha, her hooded eyes meeting his red ones. She was clutching Stiles' softening cock in one hand and with the other she was lazily swirling her fingers through the shiny remnants of his orgasm and putting them into her mouth to lick clean. The bedroom door swung shut.

"Hello, Derek." She murmured, drunk on the pleasure suffusing her body. Stiles pulled away for a second to jerk his head at Derek. "Hey," is all he offered the older man before reapplying himself to his task. Lydia giggled as Derek growled and stalked over to the bed. He wrapped the long strands of her strawberry blonde hair around his fist and tugged until she was forced to sit up. Stiles didn't stop moving his tongue beneath her. She shivered when the sharp edges of a claw scraped her skull.

"You're not a wolf. _What…are…you_?" He ground out, nostrils flaring with frustration. And lust, from the glance she dropped down to the bulge in his jeans. "You're not a wolf, but you smell like a bitch in heat. What are you doing, Lydia?" He tugged harshly on her hair.

"I'm yours." She told him, reaching up for his face with Stiles-soaked fingers. "I'm his. You're each other's, too. And you're both mine." It's a special kind of equation only Lydia can solve: 2+2+2= 3.

"Come closer."

Derek didn't resist when Lydia pulled his face down for a kiss. It was harsher, full of teeth and low moans and gasps. She wondered what Stiles-and-Lydia tasted like on his tongue. And then Stiles did something amazing with the tip of _his_ tongue, and the rapid flutters across her clitoris set her off. Lydia panted her way through her orgasm, grinding her cunt against Stiles' face.

Over the sound of her keening moans and shuddering sighs, she heard the unmistakable sound of a belt buckle clinking and the rasp of a zipper being lowered.

She still had her sparkly black and silver shoes on.

While Lydia applied herself to sliding her tongue up and down Derek's cock, she could hear the wet sounds of Stiles and Derek kissing above her. No, not kissing. It sounded more like the two men were duelling with one other. When she lightly ran her teeth along his length, she felt and heard Derek shudder and there was a low, filthy moan, which in turn made Stiles whimper. She wondered if, when Derek tasted Lydia on Stiles, it tasted different than when he had tasted Stiles on Lydia. But what would Derek-and-Stiles taste like, she wondered.

Pulling herself away with a loud _pop_, Lydia watched with an anticipatory smile as Stiles crawled closer to the alpha werewolf, pulling his naked body flush against Derek's half-clothed one, their cocks rubbing sweetly together. Her lower body clenched with desire once more.

She moved backwards on the mattress until she found the small purse she had brought with her and pulled out a string of eight condoms.

What? She was _really_ horny and there were two cocks, three people, and a various possible permutations. Lydia wanted to make sure everyone was covered.

"Derek, I want you both on the bed, _now_." The springs squeaked as Stiles bounced on top of the mattress where Derek had just bodily tossed him. Catching sight of the condoms in Lydia's hand, he snickered. "Eight? Don't you think that's a bit much for tonight?" The smile disappeared when Lydia stared at him and said, in all seriousness, "No."

The mattress dipped behind them as Derek, finally having shed all his clothes, prowled on top until he was sitting on his heels next to Lydia, cock jutting out proudly. Lydia felt her pussy contract as she stared at Derek, and she had to tear her eyes away so she could address the two of them. Stiles had a glassy look in his eyes and his mouth had gone slack.

"I've been thinking about the three of us, together like this, all day. I think I may have broken my vibrator this morning. It was the good, expensive one. So, you see, you both really owe me." With that, she tossed the strip of condoms at Stiles, leaving it to him to get one or two packets opened.

Derek gently pushed her backwards until she was lying next to Stiles. She shivered as his pale green eyes swept over the two of them hungrily before settling on the bandage she was still wearing over her bite wound. Derek's calloused palms slid along both hers and Stiles' thigh, as if seeking to calm them down. Then he was tracing the bandage tape, lightly brushing where it adhered to her skin, making her sigh tremulously.

"May I take that off?" She hesitated, and he continued. "It's just the three of us. I want…" Here, he seemed to hesitate. "I can cover his mark with our scents." He explained, still crouched over her, face close enough to her belly for his breath to tickle the skin stretched over her ribs

"Alright." She nodded, swallowing hard. And then Stiles was there, half-lying on top of her and nudging her chin up so he could slant his lips over hers. As she let herself be swept away by his soft, drugging kisses, Derek peeled off the bandage and exposed her completely. When she felt gentle, butterfly kisses being placed along the puckering red scars, Lydia's back arched, her breasts pressing into Stiles' waiting hands. He palmed one, then the other, letting the nipples tickle against his fingers before giving each an experimental tug. She squirmed in their hold.

Then she felt Derek's wet tongue lick stripes along the scarred tissue. The skin was still so sensitive, and she found herself relaxing her legs, allowing them to fall open shamelessly. Before she could reach down with her left hand, Derek was batting it away.

He growled as he nosed through her folds, breathing in the scent of her arousal deeply. One paw pressed against the wound on her side, he dove in, licking her from bottom to top as Lydia broke off her kiss with Stiles to bite down on his neck. It doesn't take long, with Stiles running the rough pad of his tongue over her nipples and Derek fucking her with three fingers while his mouth closes on her clit and just _sucks_. She comes loudly this time, back bowing and hips trying to break free of Derek's hold as the shudders rack her entire frame. Both men just coax her through it, not stopping until they've wrung every last spasm from her before they finally abate.

When she opens her eyes a little while later, limbs loose and mind spinning, Derek had Stiles' cock sealed in the suction of his lips. He wasn't keeping the younger man's hips pinned to the mattress, and Lydia watched with a partially opened mouth as Stiles surrendered to the sensations and began to buck himself up into Derek's mouth, the muscles in his thighs and abdomen shaking from the effort. And Derek just took it all.

"I've been with women, I've fooled around with men, but I've never- I mean…" He confessed, cheeks flushed red with embarrassment. "You mean you've never taken it up the ass." Lydia finished for him succinctly. "Well, yes." He said at the same time Derek lifted his mouth from his cock. "You can fuck me."

"Are- are you serious?" Stiles sounded breathless at the possibility.

His only response was the careful arching of an eyebrow. Lydia laughed, the sound tinkling through the room. "How delightfully unexpected!" She grabbed the opened condom packets and handed one to Derek, taking another for herself. "Looks like I'll be topping from the bottom tonight." With that, she gave the Alpha's cock a few pumps, luxuriating in the feel of hard velvet in her hand, before unrolling the condom over the slick head and smoothing it down the rest of the shaft. Besides her, Stiles was receiving the same treatment.

"I brought lube in my purse, too." She added helpfully.

It took ten minutes or so of both Lydia and Stiles sliding their lubricated fingers in tandem before Derek shuddered between them, eyes closed and jaw slack. At last, he was pliant and ready.

She kissed him softly on his cheek, his bristles prickling her lips. Grabbing ahold of his cock, she guided it into her pussy and moaned when he took over for her, pressing insistently the rest of the way inside until he bottomed out with a grunt against her temple. Derek stilled, even as she wriggled underneath him a little to get him more comfortably seated, and Lydia could pinpoint the exact moment Stiles breached him because he bowed his head and moaned wantonly.

It was not a noise they had ever heard out of the Alpha.

She met Stiles' eyes over Derek's shoulder and with a nod, Stiles withdrew and thrusted back into Derek, causing the other man to rock into her, both men's weight grinding against her pubic bone. With one hand, Lydia clutched at Derek's bicep, moaning as the wiry pelt of chest hair abraded her nipples. With the other hand, Lydia gripped Stiles' hair, keeping him bent close to her and Derek as they all began to twist and snap their hips in unison against one other.

"How does it feel?" She gasped at Stiles, digging one of her stilettos into his ass to make him fuck harder.

His amber eyes were half-closed from pleasure. "Fuck- it's amazing. Lydia, he was resisting but then he just swallowed up my cock. You feel so good, Derek. So good." He was breathing hard, barely unable to form complete sentences.

Her breasts began to wobble from the force of their thrusts. "Ohhh," Lydia moaned deeply, as she began to chase the thread of her orgasm. "Harder! Yes, like that, like…More! O_hhhh_!" Derek curled her hair around a fist and tugged until she was baring her throat to him. Opening her eyes once again, she stared at the both of them as she canted her hips up into Derek's. All three of them groaned as one by one, their orgasms were wrung out of their bodies.

Lydia felt a sudden, burning pain on her shoulder where Derek's fangs bit down onto the skin there, and everything went white.

**Day of the Dead**

It's midnight when she wakes up, Stiles snoring in between her and Derek on the mattress. Their combined scents are all over her. In fact, Lydia can see the neon colors of their touches, their saliva, and other unmentionable things all over her body, swirling around her. The amulet around her neck is heavy and warm, and the medallion at the center is glowing as luminously as the moon. _Now_, something tells her_. Now_.

Not Peter, she's not dreaming right this moment. Something else, something primal, from deep down inside her. Rolling off the bed, she allowed herself to be led by instinct down the stairs and out of the house. The moon is almost full. It's now. Now is the time.

Lydia is pulled towards the cemetery, wearing naught but Derek's gray henley.

Stiles didn't know what it was that woke him. He rubbed his eyes and looked around blearily until he realized that Lydia was gone. Horror settled into the pit of his belly. "Derek!" he shook the other man with more force than he thought he would be capable of. The werewolf was strangely sluggish when he finally woke up and it took more effort than it should have for him to get to his feet. But Derek fought through it and raced past Stiles down the stairs.

The two men ran out of the wide open front door, Stiles trying to keep up with Derek, who was following Lydia's scent. It took them ten minutes away, to the recently refurbished Hale house. To the small cemetery nearby, where Stiles knew that Derek's entire family was buried, in one neat row of tombs.

_Not Peter- oh god, Lydia, not Peter!_ Stiles kept begging, turning it into a prayer. Then Derek stopped dead.

Stiles sprang into the clearing behind Derek, crying out.

"Lydia, don't!"

She was naked, and covered in dirt, but beaming up at the two of them with glassy eyes. She was clutching the necklace she had been wearing earlier in one hand. The stone was blood-red now. The smell of honeysuckle was heavy in the air, cloying his senses, the coolness of the night carrying the bite of citrus to his nose.

"All the King's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again," Lydia giggled, turning her attention back to the open tomb before her. "But they should've had a witch. They should've had _me_." A pale, dirty hand reached through the entrance and clawed at the stone there. Finally, a dark head attached to a naked body stumbled outside and Stiles saw Derek jerk backwards as if struck.

"Laura?"

The name was half-whispered, half-sobbed into the night.

Laura Hale stood before the tomb, whole and intact, and looked around disoriented for a moment, before she focused on her brother. Her eyes flashed red.

"Tha- that's impossible!" Stiles pointed out, breathless. "Can she be Alpha again without killing you? I thought that was the rule!"

Lydia huffed with annoyance. "It's a silly rule. Better to have Laura back than Peter. So I found a way to keep Derek and bring his sister back. Now she can be Alpha and you two can be mine. I trapped Peter in here." She waved the necklace in their direction.

Laura arched an eyebrow at the younger woman. "And who are you?" Stiles didn't quite know what to make of the fact that he was standing before two naked women without staring at their bodies. Maybe it was a sign of maturity. Lydia extended a dainty hand out to the female werewolf. "Lydia Martin. I'm going to win the Fields Medal for mathematics someday."

Really, Stiles shouldn't be so surprised that Lydia had done this. She was mad, impossible Lydia Martin. She was red and terrible and red.


End file.
